Wednesday, July 30

Sheila Jackson-Lee is a Dem representative from Texas. She is also arguably one of the dumbest people in congress--which is sayin' a lot.

Earlier today Jackson-Lee echoed the Democrat talking-point that the push by House Republicans to sue president Obama is sort of "impeachment lite" — something she claims Democrats never tried to do to
President George W. Bush. Here's Jackson-Lee speaking on the floor of the House:

I ask my colleagues to oppose this resolution for it is
in fact a veiled attempt at impeachment and it undermines the law that
allows a president to do his job. A historical fact: President Bush
pushed this nation into a war that had little to do with apprehending
terrorists. We did not seek an impeachment of President Bush because as
an executive, he had his authority. President Obama has the authority.

Perhaps Jackson-Lee has been smoking crack. For one thing, before a single U.S. soldier moved, Bush went to congress seeking congressional permission to commit troops to Iraq. He received that permission, with "yes" votes from such Democrat whiners as Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and others.

Second, on June 10th, 2008, House Democrats--led by former Rep. Dennis Kucinich--actually did introduce a bill to
impeach Bush.

One would think Jackson-Lee would recall this--seeing as how she co-sponsored the bill.

But of course six whole years have passed since then, so either Jackson-Lee forgot, or she's simply lying, confident that not one American out of a thousand will have the resources to check her charge and call her out.

Which makes her a perfect fit for the Democratic party.

Lie with impunity, because no one will check. And if someone does find you lied, no one will report it. And if a few wingnut bloggers do report it, no one will care. Because Democrats are cool.

Prior to current military operation, was Israel occupying Gaza as Hamas claims? What's your guess?

I don't have connections to either Israel or Palestinians, but I'm fascinated by the intricacy of the conflict and by the propaganda.

For example, Hamas and all their allies--including the American media--constantly refer to Israel as "occupiers"--though in the case of U.S. media this is typically in the form of quoting Palestinian spokesmen without offering any kind of rebuttal.

Both the accusation and the way it's tacitly supported by U.S. media are brilliant. I suspect that if you asked Americans whether Israel was occupying the Gaza strip (before the current military action), about 80 percent would agree. (The same 80 percent who believe Obama has presented a genuine long-form birth certificate for examination.)

Yep, the government of Israel offered Israelis who had settled in the strip compensation for their homes and property. Those who refused the offer were forcibly removed by Israeli soldiers.

I remember being really surprised when the withdrawal was announced. For one thing, military analysts predicted that removing all IDF troops from the strip would enable Gaza residents to fire rockets into Israel--a prediction that certainly turned out to be accurate.

Amazingly, Palestinian reaction to the plan was mixed, with some denouncing it as not going far enough because it didn't include withdrawal from the West Bank. Some people will always find something to bitch about.

Tuesday, July 29

Islamic thugs release video of them executing new hundreds of bound teenage boys; U.S. media silent

No one likes distressing news. In particular, women and feminized males have such a strong aversion to certain kinds of upsetting news that most husbands know not to tell them. So if you're female or a feminized male, stop reading now.

But if you're a non-feminized male you need to know the truth about...well, damn near everything.

You need to know so you can develop countermeasures. So your loved ones don't suffer because you were too stupid or lazy or scared--or worried that you might get bumped off the A-list of D.C. parties--to prepare such measures.

Islamic terrorism is old hat. But a couple of days ago they ramped it up, as thugs of the self-titled “Islamic State” executed hundreds of Shi’ite Muslims
in northern Iraq.

Even that's grown to be routine. The twist is that the thugs videotaped their murders. The 36-minute video shows several dump-trucks packed full of terrified young men--some appearing to be in their early teens. They're driven to a remote site in what is believed to be Tikrit.
In the next scene, dozens of them are laying face-down in the sand with
their hands bound behind their back. None of them move.

They
are then told to stand up and walk with their hands behind their heads
as one of the jihadists raises the Islamic State’s flag. After a short
walk, the men are ordered to lie down on the sand before each captive is
shot in the head one by one. At least 50 are killed.

Later fifteen young men are marched one at a time to a blood-soaked rock by a river, where masked gunmen
await, one of whom is holding the Islamic State’s flag. One by one the victims are shot in the head and dumped into the river.

Rational people are reluctant to allow themselves to be filmed doing heinous things. The significance of this video is that the thugs of the so-called Islamic State seem to be eager to have the world see them executing bound and helpless prisoners.

Think about what this means. Westerners haven't seen this type of behavior in living memory. It suggests that members of this group can't be negotiated with. Which in turn suggests there is only one solution to the problem.

Westerners--and particularly soft-hearted Americans--don't want to believe this. They simply refuse to believe that any human could do such things. "Oh," they swoon, "these poor souls are just like us, and are simply confused, misguided, mis-informed! Yes, that's it! We just need to understand them better!"

By all means, take your best shot at that. In fact, all you kumbaya-crooning leftists should try your hand, since some of you clearly have far superior communication and negotiating skills. Perhaps your comrades failed to pacify these fellows because they simply weren't up to the demands of the task. Surely you will succeed where they failed. It's definitely worth a try.

But seriously: No mainstream U.S. news outlet has reported on this. After the terrorists posted the video on YouTube it was viewed by tens of thousands around the world, and copied by the U.K's Telegraph and others, but YouTube has now removed it. No one in the U.S. media or government wants you to see it.

You might ask yourself why that is.

Wait...this just in: A reporter asked Obama for comment. The president replied, “We condemn these tactics in the
strongest possible terms and stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people
against these horrendous and senseless acts of violence.”

Oh, sorry...trouble with the wire service. That statement was actually made by Secretary of State John "I served in VietNam" Kerry.

Wait...it was made by State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki.

What? You mean it wasn't any of these lofty folks? It was an anonymous woman at State, who asked not to be named?

Wow, color me shocked. No U.S. government official will go on the record, by name, condemning this atrocity. You might ask yourself why that is.

Most of you simply cannot believe what's coming. Literally, it is (understandably) not just far beyond your experience, but beyond the ability of most Americans to believe.

It's okay. Just as 70 years ago, a few determined Americans will step up, arm up, make some hard decisions and make the threat go away.

And then five years later the Left will be wailing and bitching and moaning about how mean the American military was, to turn all those poor, misguided folks of the Islamic State into vapor.

DC Appeals Court: Constitution's clear "origination clause" doesn't apply if a bill has any other purpose but just *happens* to raise taxes

Plaintiffs argued that the Affordable Care Act is a bill for raising revenue and
that it violated the Origination Clause of the Constitution because it
began in the Senate. The Constitution requires that bills to raise revenue must originate in the House.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit ruled that the main purpose of the ACA is not to raise revenue but to increase
the number of Americans covered by health insurance. Since it isn't primarily a revenue bill, there was no need for it to originate in the House.

Judge Judith Rogers wrote "The Supreme Court has held...that
revenue bills are those that levy taxes in the strict sense of the word...," and that bills designed for other purposes that increase taxes in an incidental way need not originate in the House.

This is too cute by half. Let's go see what the Constitution says about it. It's buried way down in Article 1 (that is, the very first article) Section 7, in the opening paragraph. So it's not hidden or hard to find. And it says

1. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate
in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or
concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Now, I can understand how all liberal judges would naturally interpret this paragraph as applying only to bills designed purely to raise revenue. Thus if a bill merely, oh, doubled taxes incidental to accomplishing something else, like giving all folks on welfare a free home, the tax increase wouldn't violate this provision because the bill also had some purpose other than raising taxes, and the latter was just sort of accidental.

Makes perfect sense. Especially when you consider that such a loophole would nullify the stated goal of paragraph one, and we know how much the Founding Fathers liked to screw around with things like that--writing in provisions that they knew would be nullified by logical interpretations, just to mess with future generations.

Those founder dudes really had a great sense of humor, eh?

Oh, Judith Rogers was appointed by Bill Clinton, while the other two judges in the case were appointed by the Emperor himself. So just remember, citizens: The Constitution does NOT require that all bills that raise revenue originate in the House. As long as a bill has any other purpose, anything goes.

Federal court rules that a judge having an affair with a guy's ex--while hearing the man's child-support case!--*can't be sued*

About all you can say about the court system in the U.S. is a) it's not as bad as in most other places; and b) not all judges are corrupt.

With that said, consider the case of a judge named Wade H. McCree, in the notoriously corrupt shit-hole of Wayne County, Michigan. McCree--son of a judge of the same name--was presiding over a hearing for child support and slapped the father with what were termed "high" child support payments and other significant restrictions on his travel.

Turned out that while McCree was hearing this case, he was having an affair with the man's ex-wife. In fact, the ex-wife offered sex to McCree if the judge would squeeze the father and threaten him with jail time.

That's bad enough, but it gets worse: The 6th Circuit Court has now ruled that even though the affair is a matter of record, the man can't file suit against the judge for anything about the judge's decisions while having the affair--even though it happened while the judge was hearing the man's case!

Who in their right mind would think any decision by this judge could possibly have been impartial?

It's shit like this that you'd think would eventually piss enough people off to start a revolution. Won't happen for a long time of course--and perhaps it won't ever happen here again. Rather, I think we'll see a steady trickle of smart, well-off people leaving the U.S. for saner pastures.

This is just outrageous. I can't even understand how this guy can still be on the bench. Oh wait--McCree's father served as U.S. Solicitor General and was the first black person to sit on the Sixth Circuit. Doesn't lessen the outrage but now it makes perfect sense.

The CNN piece is standard pro-Obama fare. Instead I'd like to direct your attention to the comments.

There are 34,000 of them.

Political polls typically survey a thousand people. Other than elections, you almost never see a poll of 34,000 people due to the expense.

If you read a thousand or so of the comments--if you can force yourself to--you'll see why the country is in trouble.

As someone said, the U.S. can survive having Obama as president for 8 years. The real problem is how the country can survive having an electorate 40% of whom were gullible enough to vote for him--especially a second time. (I'm exempting the nation's 12.5% blacks--understandable that they'd vote for the first black president regardless of his lack of a public record.)

The huge number of comments to the CNN story will tell you how a cross-section of Americans thinks.

Monday, July 28

Did Obama order federal employees not to enforce actual U.S. law? If so, will he double down soon?

Obama appears to be violating standing federal immigration law. The means of this violation--formally titled "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" (DACA)--was first made public in memoranda issued in 2011 and 2012 by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Such memos are considered to have the same authority as presidential executive orders, and in this case they allowed illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. indefinitely, contra to law. For example, in 2012 DHS issued a memo--with the explicit approval of the Obama administration--which not only stopped deportations of illegal alien youths but also gave them work permits.

Today [August 15, 2012] the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin accepting requests for consideration of deferred action for childhood arrivals. Deferred action is a discretionary determination to defer removal action of an individual as an act of prosecutorial discretion. Under this process, USCIS will consider requests on a case-by-case basis.

While this process does not provide lawful status or a pathway to permanent residence or citizenship, individuals whose cases are deferred will not be removed from the United States for a two year period, subject to renewal, and may also receive employment authorization. To be considered for this process, you must show that:

You came to the United States before reaching your 16th birthday

You have continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007, up to the present time

You were under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012

You entered without inspection before June 15, 2012, or your lawful immigration status expired as of June 15, 2012

You are currently in school, have graduated or obtained your certificate of completion from high school, have obtained your general educational development certification, or you are an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States

You have not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor, or three or more misdemeanors, and do not otherwise pose a threat

I use the term "appears to violate" because many statutes contain a boilerplate clause that gives the president the power to suspend many provisions in the event of a national emergency. I've been trying--so far unsuccessfully--to see if the controlling immigration law has such a loophole. However, I suspect that if the law had such a emergency loophole, Team Obama would have long since cited the exact paragraph and line number as authority.

Since they didn't, my guess is that no such authority exists. But given the well-known difficulty of proving a negative, the jury is still out on that one.

Why is this important? Because Team Obama has leaked to its media allies that Obama will take stronger action--again via executive order--at the end of the summer to give some form of amnesty to illegal aliens.

But, you think, that shouldn't be a problem because we've been under DACA for two years now and the sky hasn't fallen. Isn't the proposed action just a small expansion of DACA?

Well, according to the White House only about 1.7 million illegals qualified for DACA amnesty. By contrast, the total number of illegal aliens estimated to be in the U.S. is between 11 million and 30 million, depending on whose estimate you think is more accurate. But even with the low one, you're looking at over six times more illegals legalized.

I suspect the strategy all along was to use DACA as a trial balloon. Because it was "for the poor innocent kiddies," they expected--correctly--that only a few hot-heads would *seriously* oppose it. Then if no one pitched a fit over the unconstitutional usurpation of legislative power after a year or two, they'd be clear to go full-throttle.

They've already seen that the Repubs are sharply divided on the issue, so even if we wind up with a majority in the senate, I don't think enough Repubs would vote to remove. As I see it that leaves two possibilities: In earlier years--as when Nixon was being pursued for the Watergate coverup--the Supreme Court could order the president to comply with the Constitution's mandate to "faithfully enforce the laws." Today, though, it seems pretty obvious that Team Obama has some pretty powerful leverage on the chief justice. With Roberts voting Dem, the court won't get involved.

The second possibility would be the House growing a pair and passing something like "No funds appropriated by the U.S. shall be spent on legalizing the status of anyone who entered the U.S. without complying with all the provisions of the Immigration Act of 19XX." Unfortunately there are probably lots of ways to get around such a provision. Plus, Obama and the Dems could go to court seeking to have any such act ruled unconstitutional, and they'd probably win--for the same reason that the Supreme Court is unlikely to order the president to comply with...anything.

What you need to understand is that legalizing even 11 million new Democrat votes--let alone 20 million or more--will mean Democrat control of both houses and the presidency for the next 50 years. The Dems know this, and their recent track record suggests they're willing to do virtually anything to get that.

I think this has been completely plotted out; that nothing seems likely to stop it, and that once Obama declares it by executive order or Memo or magic pixy dust, it'll be essentially impossible to undo.

I'll also predict that 15 years from now a handful of "progressives" will surface confirming the strategy and bragging about how they outsmarted the Republicans and the Tea Party. Kinda like Billy Ayers couldn't resist bragging "Guilty as hell, free as a bird." If you've buggered the country that thoroughly and gotten away with it, the temptation to take credit for being that smart would be terribly hard to resist.

Dems on Obamacare: "It's a typo. Because we say so. The actual written words mean nothing."

Kevin Williamson at National Review has a good piece on why we write laws out on some sort of more-or-less permanent medium--and why the language actually used matters. Or used to.

Here's my take on his main points (but read his whole article):

If
laws aren't written down, whoever is running things at any moment can constantly change them. No one has any proof of what the law was before that
moment. Written law was the first real constraint on the power of
kings.

And obviously, for the written law to have any meaning other than what the ruler says, the language actually used must *mean* something.

Liberals would be happy to see us return to the
primitive state of "pay no attention to the words"--as long as they're in command:
“Our mean opponents claim a rogue word or two in the written law says
tax credits are only available to those who enroll on a state-created
insurance exchange, but that isn’t what we meant.

"And you must believe us when we tell you what we Democrats meant, because who else could possibly know?

"You must believe we meant all along what we say today. You must believe this even if you find a videotape of some speaker from a place called "M.I.T." saying that the true intent was exactly as you and the typo claim--because everyone knows tapes can be faked. And if a second tape surfaces of a different speech by the same person, saying the same thing--same answer. Because this person was probably just a low-level clerk who had no idea of the total, overall theory of how we planned it to work.

"Besides, this low-level person has now gone on MSNBC and assured us all that he has no idea what he meant when he was taped saying those things, and that the irksome word or two in the law is "an obvious typo." Oh, and he's described both his earlier statements as "speak-os." So just simple mistakes, like we all make.

"If you want to know what we intended--and remember, that's the only controlling legal authority now--you should ask someone who was in a far higher-level position, like the speaker of the House at the time. No one has her on tape saying credits were only available to those who enrolled via state exchanges, eh? So there ya go! In fact she said "We have to pass the bill to see what's in it," which clearly shows she agrees with our position. Which is what we meant all along. Swearsies.

"It's just wrong to interpret the law to mean what you claim some typo says, because that interpretation is not the one we desire. And who are you, and what is the law, if it keeps us Democrats from the goals we seek?

"Besides, we Democrats are acting in the Sacred Public Interest. We know what that is because our friends in the Media tell us what the public interest is and what it is not. And all their stories showed that everyone wanted Obamacare. At least everyone they polled.

"And besides, the people who have found this typo--because that's all it is--want to repeal Obamacare, and are therefore wicked and ignorant. And raaacist.

There's a mistake taught to journalism students, called "burying the lede." That's when a novice puts the most important part of a story in the 5th or 9th paragraph. In theory newspapers should put the most important info right at the top, right?

But sometimes this isn't a mistake. Rather, newspapers or networks or wire services with an agenda will put a dull title on a story, make the first few 'grafs fit the dull title, and bury the "OMG" part several 'grafs down. This ensures that most readers bail out of the story before the bombshell part.

Example: Last Friday in western Afghanistan, members of the Taliban--i.e. fanatical Muslims--stopped a passenger bus,
identified 14 Shiite Hazara passengers, including three women, bound
their hands and shot them dead, an official
said.

Now, as far as Americans are concerned, Muslim fanatics have been killing people for the last 13 years, so at first glance this may not sound like news. But consider: In this case the people killed by the thugs weren't drug dealers or Christians or people (gasp!!) watching the World Cup. Instead the thugs stopped a bus, identified members of a competing faction of Islam--including three women!--and shot them dead.

You have no idea what you're facing, America.

And to help keep you from getting an idea, we have this same story as printed by the Associated Press. Published under the totally dull title "Afghan warlord warns against pact with U.S.", here are the first six paragraphs (and you can skim the first five as they're dull/boring):

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In a blow to hopes for peace talks, the
Taliban's reclusive leader warned Friday that a bilateral security pact
allowing thousands of U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond the end
of this year will mean more fighting.

The Americans and NATO allies are winding down combat operations but
want to leave a residual force to help train Afghan security forces and
conduct counterterrorism operations amid fears government troops are
ill-prepared to face a relentless insurgency and the security vacuum
could pave the way for an al-Qaida resurgence in the country.

President Barack Obama has announced he wants to leave nearly 10,000
Americans in Afghanistan for two more years. The Afghan government has
agreed in principle to a security agreement that would allow them to
stay but the deal has yet to be signed. Both candidates vying to replace
outgoing President Hamid Karzai have promised to sign it, but they are
locked in a dispute over election results.

Mullah Mohammad Omar called on the candidates not to sign the agreement.

"We believe the war in Afghanistan will come to an end when all
foreign invaders pull out of Afghanistan and a holy Islamic and
independent regime prevails here. Presence of limited number of troops
under whatever title it may be will mean continuation of occupation and
the war," he said in a message issued ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday
that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The message was
translated into Dari, Arabic, English and Pashto.

Violence continued Friday. Taliban insurgents halted minibuses in the
western province of Ghor, identified 14 Shiite Hazara passengers,
including three women, bound their hands, then shot them dead by the
side of the road, an official said.

Obviously no sane American reader cares about what some Afghan warlord says about some contemplated agreement. No rational person believes the Taliban--or any other Muslim group--will honor any agreement in any case. The shocking part of the story is buried in the 6th paragraph.

Does anyone know the origins of the right-wing meme that Congress “never read” health care reform before passing it?

Those of us with working memories recall that one of the key complaints about law that created Obamacare was that no one in congress had read the damn thing. Republicans complained about the rush to pass without giving anyone time to read it, while Democrats smiled coyly and said things like "We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it."

That last was from your goofy former speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. You really need to see how creepy she looks in that video.

So Bouie is implying that the notion that "congress never read health care reform before passing it" is just a "right-wing meme"--thus presumably has no factual basis.

So here's the same left-wing writer just 4 hours later:

Man, didn't realize how many folks sincerely believe lawmakers read tens of thousands of pages of statutory language every year.

Now he's saying that lawmakers--swamped with not just 2,409 pages but "tens of thousands of pages" of [proposed] statutory language every year--can't possibly read it all...and implying that anyone who actually *believes* lawmakers read the laws they pass is naive or dumb.

Dude, just 4 hours earlier you were implying that conservatives just made up that whole idea--stupid, conspiracy-minded rubes, right? But now--a whole four hours later--you're saying that anyone who believes lawmakers actually *read* all that stuff is silly!

How can anyone this bereft of logical consistency expect to be taken seriously?

Friday, July 25

Democrat congressional rep says you don't have a right to know what Team Obama is doing

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non-voting
congressional representative for the District of Columbia, angrily
sputtered during a congressional hearing Friday that the White House
should not be held up to scrutiny, saying that there was no right to know what it was doing behind closed doors.

"You don't have a right to know
everything in a separation-of-powers government, my friend. That is the
difference between a parliamentary government and a separation-of-powers
government," Norton said during a House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee hearing.

It was a huge departure from the usual liberal claim that we must have openness and transparency in government to
prevent abuses of power by government officials. Instead Holmes argued
that even the congressional committee charged with oversight shouldn't
be asking questions of the Obama administration.

Holmes made the statement while complaining about the committee's Republican majority voting to ignore a claim
by the White House that the director of its Office of
Political Strategy and Outreach, was immune to a congressional subpoena
to testify. Republicans believe the office is being used to further political
campaigning at taxpayer expense, which would violate federal election law.

Hoping
to stem the recent surge of migrants at the Southwest border, the Obama
administration is considering whether to allow hundreds of minors and
young adults from Honduras into the United States without making the
dangerous trek through Mexico, according to a draft of the proposal.

If
approved, the plan would direct the government to screen thousands of
children and youths in Honduras to see if they can enter the United
States as refugees or on emergency humanitarian grounds. It would be the
first American refugee effort in a nation reachable by land to the
United States, the White House said, putting the violence in Honduras on
the level of humanitarian emergencies in Haiti and Vietnam, where such
programs have been conducted in the past amid war and major crises.

Critics
of the plan were quick to pounce, saying it appeared to redefine the
legal definition of a refugee and would only increase the flow of
migration to the United States. Administration officials said they
believed the plan could be enacted through executive action, without
congressional approval, as long as it did not increase the total number
of refugees coming into the country.

The first "WTF?" line is that Team Obama is "considering" allowing "hundreds of minors and young adults from Honduras into the United States without making the
dangerous trek through Mexico."

Since the only country on our southern border is Mexico, how does Team Obama propose to get 'em here without going thru Mexico?

People who have seen the "draft proposal" say Team Obama is proposing to fly them here on chartered jets.

Say WHAT??

And if this loony proposal is enacted, who in their right mind would think this would "stem the surge" of Hondurans--or recent immigrants to Honduras--coming to the U.S.?

Seems to me that most sane people would think that if you made it possible for people to get here just by applying to the nice bureaucrat and boarding a jet, instead of trekking across the Mexican desert, a LOT more people would apply. But maybe that's just me.

Oh, and there's that "executive action, without congressional approval" thing again. Can someone show me where the Constitution gives a president the authority to take these unilateral actions? Of course I realize Obama writes his own laws but still...

There's more in the Times:

The
proposal, prepared by several federal agencies, says the pilot program
under consideration would cost up to $47 million over two years,
assuming 5,000 applied and about 1,750 people were accepted. If
successful, it would be adopted in Guatemala and El Salvador as well.

It
is unclear how the administration determined those estimates, given
that since Oct. 1 more than 16,500 unaccompanied children traveled to
the United States from Honduras alone.

Be honest now: Before two years ago, if you'd read this story on Fox or some blog, would even one of you have believed it?

Thursday, July 24

Islamic State orders women in and around Mosul, Iraq, to undergo genital mutilation

Surely everyone now knows about the ghastly torture called "female genital mutilation," which is routinely practiced in Muslim nations.

Now those zany ghouls calling themselves the Islamic State have issued a "religious decree" ordering all girls and women in and around Mosul, Iraq, to be so mutilated--this according to the U.N, per the Irish Times.

Apparently this would affect 4 million females in this area.

A note to Democrats: For over a year now you've been wailing that Republicans in the U.S. are waging a "war on women" by opposing forcing employers to give women not just *most* types of birth control, but also the so-called "morning after" pill. That's not a war on women, Sparky--the mutilation order from the heinous throat-cutters of the Islamic State is the *real* war on women.

New meme on Obamacare and the appeals court slapdown: it's all due to a "drafting error" in the ACA's language!

[This post is long but goes in a *much* different direction about half-way through. Bear with me. You'll be...surprised. Or maybe shocked.]

Team Obama and the Democrats have digested this week's court ruling that the plain language of the actual Obamacare law only permitted subsidies for people who signed up on state exchanges. And they've huddled with their Media allies and devised the strategy to defeat this ruling and get their way.

And it is: "The bill's language is a drafting error."

And instantly, as if by magic, every lefty website and pundit and talking head was tweeting things like

Republicans are trying to take away health insurance from millionsbased on a drafting error" (Salon)

and

Pity the staffer who made the drafting error in the ACA that led to the Halbig ruling. (Blake Hounshell)

and

Some folks would really love it if millions of folks lost their insurance subsidies next year over a drafting error. (Brian Beutler)

Of course as actual attorneys have pointed out, the language makes clear that it was NOT a drafting error, but why should the Left let mere facts prevent them from keeping their new power? So you can expect an avalanche of similar comments in the next few weeks.

The Left needs to sell the "it was a drafting error" story to make an expected Supreme Court decision more plausible. Otherwise the court would only be able to support Team Obama by doing some kind of weird inversion like "The 'mandate' in Obamacare is constitutional because it's a tax, even though the government's own lawyers argued it was actually a penalty" or some such equally ridiculous bullshit.

Oh, wait...the Supreme Court--justice Roberts--already did that. It was clunky but the public bought it. This time the media wants to do a better job "preparing the ground" for the decision they want.

To understand how totally you've been conned, you need to see just how the clear, plain language of the actual law--clearly stating that subsidies or credits were available only to people who joined "state exchanges"--was completely reversed, to accomplish the goal sought by the Left. It's a classic con.

Most laws contain language to the effect that "Agency X will develop and promulgate rules to enact the language of this bill." Sometimes Agency X actually does enact "the language of the bill," but often bureaucrats insert their own interpretation of what they claim Congress intended by using a certain phrase.

So for example in Section 1411 of the ACA--titled "Refundable credit for coverage under a qualified health plan"--we find the "Premium assistance amount" to be "the lesser of...the premiums for one or more qualified health plans offered...within a state...which were enrolled through an Exchange established by the State..."

This language was included as a huge incentive to the 50 states to create their own State exchanges. Doing so would take most of the heat and workload off the federal government.

But as the start date got closer and only a dozen or so states had agreed to create their own state health-care "exchanges," Team Obama realized that under the actual language of section 1411, 70 percent of Americans wouldn't be eligible for subsidies or credits.

Oooh, what to do, what to dooooo? Solution! Have the IRS propose a "federal rule" stating that when the ACA said "premium assistance" was only available to people who enrolled through State exchanges, what it really meant was nothing of the sort. Instead the IRS would claim that what congress really meant was that everyone would receive the subsidies/credits.

Wow, that just instantly got a LOT sweeter, eh? Pretty cool how the IRS--obviously acting at the direct order of Barack Obozo--could just rewrite the clear language of the *law*, eh?

Of course if they'd done this in an obvious way someone would have sued, so they had to do this total re-write in two stages: First was a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking," on August 11, 2011. The relevant portion--buried in 19 pages of incredibly dense, barely comprehensible bureau-BULLSHIT--states

Explanation of Provisions

1. Eligibility for the Premium Tax Credit

The proposed regulations provide that
a taxpayer is eligible for the credit for
a taxable year if the taxpayer is an
applicable taxpayer and the taxpayer or
a member of the taxpayer’s family (1) is
enrolled in one or more qualified health
plans through an Exchange established
under section 1311 or 1321 of the
Affordable Care Act (42 U.S.C. 13031 or
42 U.S.C. 18041)

You don't see any bombshells in there, right? That's because politicians know that no one will ever bother actually finding and reading the references to the text of the ACA. But in fact the proposed regulation totally changed the law so that now everyone would get credits or subsidies, regardless of what type of exchange they joined.

Sections 1311 and 1321 direct the states to establish "health-care exchanges," but then immediately say that if a state chooses not to, or if the feds determine their exchange doesn't satisfy all the requirements of the 2,409-page act, the federal gummint will establish a *federal* exchange. But the section that actually deals with subsidies or credits is 1411. You can find this buried on page 238 (of a mere 2,409) at lines 8-26.

Not one of you will go check that out for yourself--which is fair enough, because we foolishly think our reps and senators and their 5000-plus staffers--with their gargantuan salaries and retirement benefits--will do that FOR us. At least that's what we're paying 'em to do, and what they *should* do. Otherwise what the fuck are we paying their enormous salaries and golden pensions for, eh?

At any rate, seven months after the "proposed rulemaking" was published, the IRS issued the "final rule" arising from their proposal. The following innocuous 'graf is the one that does the dirtywork:

Under the proposed regulations, the
term Exchange has the same meaning as
in 45 CFR 155.20, which provides that
the term Exchange refers to a State
Exchange, regional Exchange, subsidiary
Exchange, and Federally-facilitated
Exchange.

Doesn't look like a big deal, eh? But notice that the IRS has simply *declared* that "the term Exchange [a "term of art" in the Affordable Care Act] has the same meaning as in 45 CFR 155.20..." without saying what that means--or how that was determined. Note also that the reference they gave is NOT to the law itself but to the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations). This provides an extra layer of disconnect between the language in the actual LAW and what they just did--which was to rewrite one of the act's key provisions to do what Emperor Obama wanted.

Commentators disagreed on whether
the language in section 36B(b)(2)(A)
limits the availability of the premium
tax credit only to taxpayers who enroll
in qualified health plans on State
Exchanges.
The statutory language of section 36B
and other provisions of the Affordable
Care Act support the interpretation that
credits are available to taxpayers who
obtain coverage through a State
Exchange, regional Exchange, subsidiary
Exchange, and the Federally-facilitatedExchange. Moreover, the relevant
legislative history does not demonstrate
that Congress intended to limit the
premium tax credit to State Exchanges.

Notice how cleverly this is phrased: "The legislative history does NOT demonstrate that Congress intended to limit..." Yeah, it also doesn't demonstrate that Congress intended to limit your right to marry a goat, so we hereby declare that you have that right. Uh-huh. There are lots of things the legislative history doesn't touch on--and of course none of those unmentioned things has the slightest bearing on what the IRS could declare to be the law, let alone mandatory.

Accordingly, the final regulations
maintain the rule in the proposed
regulations because it is consistent with
the language, purpose, and structure of
section 36B and the Affordable Care Act
as a whole.

So...faced with a situation they didn't anticipate--only 14 states setting up health "exchanges" despite the obvious carrot that this was how their residents would get the credits or subsidies--Democrats simply used the agency rule-making bullshit to interpret the law in a way that let them get what they wanted. 'We declare our version is consistent with the language and purpose of the Act as a whole.'

Slick, huh. And this happens *all the time.*

Oh, one more thing: All this whining about "a drafting error"? Note that when the government argued the Halbig case before the D.C. court of appeals, Team Obama's attorneys did not mention--not once--the new, hot claim that the language was a drafting error.

Gee, wonder why not?
====
[Here's where it gets a LOT more exciting.]

UPDATE: One of the main architects of Obamacare was a guy named Jonathan Gruber. How much of a role did he have? Well, Team Obama paid him $400,000 as a consultant, and he claims to have written a portion of the law's language. Also he was the architect of Massachusetts' mandatory health-insurance law, which is widely considered to be the model for the ACA.

Two years ago Gruber said this about the tax credits or premium subsidies in the ACA:

What's important to remember politically about this is if you're a
state and you don't set up an exchange, that means your citizens don't
get their tax credits--but your citizens still pay the taxes that
support this bill.

That couldn't possibly be any clearer: One of the main architects of the bill clearly says that if a state didn't set up a State health-care "exchange" its citizens wouldn't get the tax credit. And he's on video saying this.

But just one year later, after lawsuits were filed claiming the law said exactly what Gruber claimed just a year earlier, Gruber reversed his position, telling the liberal magazine Mother Jones
that the theory advanced by the plaintiffs that subsidies or credits were only available to those enrolled in State exchanges, was "nutty."

Wow. That's some serious lyin'. I'd love to see this pencil-dick under oath, asked which of his statements was true--and why he made the absolute opposite statement..

Gruber also signed an amicus brief supporting Team Obama and
the IRS declaration that everyone could get credits.

Click here to get to a long video of Gruber in 2012 (relevant part starts at 31:20). The video clearly shows that in 2012, not only did Gruber say exactly what the plaintiffs are claiming the law says and intended, but that his subsequent reversal is utter lying and bullshit. But exactly what we've come to expect from Team Obama and his loyal Democrats--on every topic.

This video evidence is so utterly damning to Gruber that one wonders how arrogant or irrational this asshole must be to think he could claim his original statement on the law's effect was "nutty" without anyone ever discovering it.

Not that he'd need to worry if the reversal was discovered, of course, since the Lying Media would never mention it and Team Obama would see to it that he would never suffer a legal sanction.

Again, it's become all too typical.

Earlier this week Gruber doubled down, appearing
on MNSBC to address the recent court ruling. He was asked if the
language limiting subsidies to state-run exchanges was a typo. His
response:

It is unambiguous this is a
typo. Literally every single person involved in the crafting of
this law has said that it`s a typo, that they had
no intention of excluding the federal exchanges.

But again, look at his statement on the video from 2012:

What's important to remember politically about this is if you're a
state and you don't set up an exchange, that means your citizens don't
get their tax credits--but your citizens still pay the taxes that
support this bill.

Were you lying then, or are you lying now, Mr. Gruber?

Update: Gruber explains. You know how libs are claiming the working of the ACA was a typo? Meet the never-before-seen cousin of the typo: The "speak-o." This morning Gruber told the New Republic that he doesn't know
why he said in 2012 that Americans wouldn't get tax credits if their state didn't set up an Exchange. "I was speaking off-the-cuff. It
was just a mistake," he said. "My subsequent statement [sic] was
just a speak-o—you know, like a typo."

A typo is
usually a simple slip of the finger on the keyboard, i.e. a misspelling
or missed bit of punctuation. Gruber's videotaped statement from 2012 is nearly a minute
long.

The part about state residents losing money if their state doesn't set up an exchange starts around 0:52. Here's what he says:

When the voters in states see that by not setting up an exchange, the politicians in that state are costing state residents hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, that they'll eventually throw the guys out.

And that is really the ultimate threat, is will people understand that, gee, if your governor doesn't set up an exchange you're losing hundreds of millions of dollars of tax credits to be delivered to your citizens.

So he explicitly ties not setting up a state exchange to costing residents of that state "hundreds of millions of dollars of tax credits." How can this be a "slip of the tongue"--or as this asshole slyly puts it, a "speak-o"?

It's also crucial that while the video clip was in answer to a question from the audience--and thus Gruber could claim he misunderstood--the audio clip was part of his prepared remarks.

I honestly don’t remember why I said that. I was speaking
off-the-cuff. It was just a mistake. People make mistakes. Congress
made a mistake drafting the law and I made a mistake talking about it.

During
this era, at this time, the federal government was trying to encourage
as many states as possible to set up their exchanges. ... At this
time there was also substantial uncertainty about whether the federal
backstop would be ready on time for 2014. I might have been thinking
that if the federal backstop wasn't ready by 2014, and states hadn't set
up their own exchange, there was a risk that citizens couldn't get the
tax credits right away. ...

But there was never any intention to
literally withhold money, to withhold tax credits, from the states that
didn’t take that step. That’s clear in the intent of the law and if you
talk to anybody who worked on the law. My subsequent statement was just a
speak-o—you know, like a typo.

There are
few people who worked as closely with Obama administration and Congress
as I did, and at no point was it ever even implied that there’d be
differential tax credits based on whether the states set up their own
exchange. And that was the basis of all the modeling I did, and that was
the basis of any sensible analysis of this law that’s been done by any
expert, left and right.

I didn’t assume every state would set up
its own exchanges but I assumed that subsidies would be available in
every state. It was never contemplated by anybody who modeled or worked
on this law that availability of subsides would be conditional of who
ran the exchanges.

Now compare the three quotes in red above with Gruber saying exactly, specifically the opposite in January of 2012.

Lying, lying, lying son of a fucking bitch. Dead to rights. And yet he keeps maintaining "there was never any intention...", "at no point was it ever even implied that there'd be differential credits..." and "It was never contemplated by anybody that..."

Again, I think it's fascinating that this guy has doubled-down on "never contemplated" when his own words not only contemplated but threatened the witholding of premium tax credis. It's hard to imagine his mind-set in thinking he can get away with this. I can only hope that some competent courtroom attorney calls this guy as a witness and cuts him to ribbons on the stand.

I'd pay good money to see how the guy denies his taped comments--on not one but two occasions-- when he's being cross-examined instead of questioned by a sympathetic leftist interviewer.

Okay, one more update and then I've gotta quit: After listening to the audio clip confirming the earlier video, MSNBC's Adam Serwer emailed Gruber and asked him about the second clip: Was it also "speak-o"?

Gruber's reply: "Same answer." That is, he's claiming he made the exact same, long-duration "slip of the tongue" twice, on separate occasions.

But lest you think MSNBC has gotten some brains, Serwer then writes a dozen paragraphs arguing that Gruber's opinion should carry no weight at all, and that the language of the bill doesn't mean what it says. Instead, this is all just a sinister plot to destroy Obamacare.

Tuesday, July 22

Administration spokesman tells reporter the percentage of illegal "children" that have been released

Kenneth Wolfe is deputy director of the Office of Public Affairs at ACF.

Of course most of you have never heard of this agency, and no wonder: Who can keep up with the numberless federal agencies? Seems like a dozen new ones a month.

Anyway, ACF is the "Administration of Children and Families." Which is a branch of those zany health Nazis at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Another office under HHS is the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Kenneth apparently speaks for that office too. So Deputy Director of the ACF's Office of Public Affairs Kenneth Wolfe is the closest thing to a point man you're likely to find at Team Obama.

Coupla days ago a nice middle-aged lady asked Kenneth how many unaccompanied children had come across the border since October of last year. Of course neither Kenneth nor anyone else has anything other than a guess, but he did tell her that 45, 157 "children" had passed through the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement since October.

Okay, the nice lady asked, How many of those have been released in the U.S?

Because the nice lady looked like all the other female reporters who love Democrats, Kenneth assumed she was part of that group and that he could give her the real number instead of the lawyerized one: 96 percent had been released to a "sponsor" inside the U.S, he said.

Except Kenneth didn't say "released" but used the less-inflammatory term "discharged.” Cuz if we say "released" all them Tea Party terrorists will be down here with their assault rifles in two days.

As has already been noted, many of the "sponsors" the kids are going to are family members, and many of them are *also* in the U.S. illegally.

Pretty neighborly of Team Obama to give the kids "free" transportation to join their illegal parents in the U.S, eh?

Now before Cheryl or Nancy goes off on me, let me quickly say that once a kid under 17 or so sneaks across the border and turns him- or herself in to U.S. authorities, no one wants to just bus 'em back to the nearest Mexican town and let 'em fend for themselves. Instead, it would be great if the government said that anyone who *did* come here and had illegal family already here would result in the whole family being deported.

The benefit of this approach is that you wouldn't need to get the word out in Central American countries, but just here in the U.S., through public-service announcements.

Think that'd cut the flow of kids by about 97 percent?

Of course when Obama issued the executive order saying federal employees were to stop deporting "Dreamer" kids (what a public-relations coup *that* acronym was, eh?), just the opposite happened: every illegal in the U.S. who had a kid or nephew back home picked up the phone and said Hey, they just threw the doors wide open! C'mon up and we'll pretend you're my kid!

But not to worry, citizen: They're just here because they're fleeing bad conditions in their home countries. So we just have to let them in and let 'em vote. I mean, there can't be more than a few thousand people in that situation, right? So what would it hurt to let a few thousand poor "refugees" in? Besides, as soon as conditions improve back home I'm sure they'll all be *eager* to go back.

Meanwhile, Welcome to America! This way to the Food Stamp office. There's the free hospital. Everyone gets free schooling, and schools aren't allowed to ask you if you're here legally. Oh, and if you have a water bill you can vote. But only in local elections. No, I don't know what that means, and no one is allowed to ask you for ID, so...just remember to vote for everyone with a "D" next to their names.

Background: THE big draw of Obamacare--as everyone knows--was and is the provision that gives users a juicy subsidy. The subsidy is absolutely crucial--it's how Obie could claim everyone would save thousands a year on health insurance.

Problem was, the actual *language* of the law says--quite clearly and specifically--that these subsidies were only available to people who joined a *state* "health exchange."

But as state governors and legislators started seeing what a monster this was, they realized creating a viable health exchange would probably cost 'em $200 million or more. Thus 36 states decided they'd pass on this expense, and said their peeps would use the federal "exchange."

See the problem yet? If you do, you're smarter than most Democrats. Cuz it got by all of 'em.

Oh wait, that's right: Not a single member read the whole bill before voting on it.

Even Nancy Pelosi--who was then the fucking Speaker of the House, fer cryin' out loud--said "We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it."

But no problem, citizen: According to the Emperor and all Dem leaders the actual language of a law doesn't mean squat, since the Emperor can change anything he disagrees with. Cool!

So when people signed up for Obammycare, that astonishingly competent ACA website gave everyone who claimed low income those sweeet, sweeeet subsidies regardless of where they lived.

Um...oops. That wasn't what the law clearly stated.

But still, no problem: The Emperor can change the law to whatever he wanted all along. Cuz he's soooo smart! Mind as sharp as the front end of a baseball.

Sadly, two of the three judges on the court of appeals said even the Emperor's people had to do what the law said. Hard to know where they got that idea, but there ya go.

Team Obama is already arguing that it was NOT the intent of congress that subsidies could only be paid to people who had joined a State exchange. You'll be shocked to learn that this is unmitigated bullshit. That provision was absolutely intentional: congress inserted it to give the states a strong incentive to set up their own health care
exchanges.

This attempt
to coerce or bribe states into setting up their own exchanges had the double-benefit of absolving
the federal government of blame for any screw-ups--which of course turned out to plague the ACA website. So 36 states
declined the invitation (or, if you like, the bribe).

When it became clear that over two-thirds of the states would not be setting up their own
exchanges, the administration could have asked Congress to rewrite the
statute. But of course this would have required another legislative battle, as by then the GOP had won a majority in the House.

So what did the Obama administration do? In an all too typical pattern, it chose to act
lawlessly, ordering the payment of subsidies never authorized by
Congress. I guess they all believed their own propaganda, that language only means what they say it does.

But still, no problem: Team Obama has announced it will appeal to the entire court. Dem leaders and "progressive" (i.e. socialist) strategists are confident they'll win there, since 7 of the 11 judges on the whole court were appointed by Democrats, and thus can be expected to put party over the law.

Even more telling: Normally when a party to a case loses a decision in a high court, they stop doing the offending act until the next appeal is decided, since there's no guarantee the next appeal will support them. But Obama's lawless Department of Injustice has already announced that the Obama administration will keep giving Obamacare subsidies to every low-income applicant, in violation of the clear language of the act--as well as today's opinion by the court.

Before the current administration this would have been a provocative and potentially impeachable act. Today it's totally unsurprising.
===

Download--at a svelte 4.27 megabytes it shouldn't take too long. On page 237 (of 2,409) you should see the heading "Premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions." Go to the next page at line 16, which should read "Premium assistance amount." The bite is in lines 25-26.

Two thousand four-hundred and nine pages. To essentially take overhealth insurance and compel all citizens to buy it. What could possibly go wrong?

Dem strategists pushing the lie that "Impeachment is the ONLY remedy available."

Most of us over the age of 40 or so were taught at least the basics of the Constitution in high school--that the federal government has three branches and that the Constitution created a system of "checks and balances" by which each branch can keep the others from exceeding or abusing their legal authority.

Guess what? According to Democrats, that stuff about "checks and balances" was all a lie. Because in the Age of Obama, we don't need congress to make laws. Instead the president can make laws. And ignore laws. And according to Democrats there is no power short of impeachment to force the president to obey the law or the Constitution.

Now I suspect some of you older hands are thinking, "I recall a few cases where the Supreme Court ruled that the president had to obey a certain law--and the president then followed that decision." Quite true. But that was when we had a Republican president, and Democrats controlled both houses of congress.

And most importantly, it was before the Age of Obama.

Consider the arguments made by Democrats backing Obama's unilateral nullification of U.S. immigration law, and unilateral delay of the "mandate deadline" of Obamacare. Here's the gist:

One of the barriers to standing is that in order to sue in court, an individual needs to suffer a concrete injury.
The mandate delays have not caused a specific injury to any member of Congress.

This lovely bit of rationalizing was at a website called "Newsweek"--a Democrat-fluffing "news" magazine that was sold for one dollar and ceased print. The author is arguing that congress can't ask the Supreme Court to decide whether actions by the president violate the Constitution, nor whether the other two branches have the power to force the president to (gasp!) obey the Constitution and duly-passed laws.

For those of you under 30 or so, you may not know that impeachment is actually a two-step process: Impeachment itself involves the House voting to send the president to trial in the senate. The senate then votes on whether the president is to be removed from office.

Democrat strategists know full well that since they hold a majority in the senate, impeachment by the House is futile, since the Democrat-controlled senate would never vote to remove Obama from office. Thus it's very much to their advantage to get the public to believe that the ONLY remedy for a rogue, Constitution-raping president is...impeachment.

Of course that's bullshit, but the Dems know they can count on their allies in the Lying Media to parrot their claims uncritically. For example, here's Newsweek again:

Democrats repeatedly made the point that the suit is a political stunt.
“The dividing line in this frivolous lawsuit is not the legislative
versus the executive, it is Republican versus Democrat, and I hope that
the courts will see that,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York.

Again, they're trying to get the public to believe that the only remedy for a president who is alleged to have violated the Constitution or the law is impeachment.

Dem strategists have a huge advantage here because they know that not one American out of a hundred has the faintest idea that the Supreme Court has always been used to settle disputes between congress the president as to what a law means and whether some specific action violates it.

In one of the most famous examples, the court ruled that a president did not have absolute immunity from judicial processes. This of course was U.S. v. Nixon, in 1974, and it led to Nixon's resignation two weeks later.

The Dems don't want any court to turn up the heat on this lawless president, so they're pushing the line that "If the Repubs think our president has broken the law, the only remedy is impeachment. Since they aren't doing that, he must be innocent."

Interesting argument. But utter bullshit.

===== United States v. Nixon (1974). The Supreme Court voted 8-0 against President Richard Nixon, leading to his resignation. It is considered a crucial precedent limiting the power of any US president.

Background:

On June 17, 1972, about five months before the
general election, five burglars broke into Democratic headquarters
located in the Watergate complex in Washington, DC. Later a grand jury indicted several men close to the White House for the break-in.

In April 1974, Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski obtained a subpoena
ordering Nixon to release certain tapes and papers related to specific
meetings between the President and those indicted by the grand jury.
Prosecutors believed those tapes contained
damaging evidence involving the indicted men and perhaps the President
himself.

Hoping Jaworski and the public would be satisfied, Nixon turned over
edited transcripts of the conversations demanded by the subpoena. Nixon's attorney then requested Judge John Sirica of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to quash the
subpoena.

Sirica denied Nixon's motion and ordered the President to turn the
tapes over by May 31. Both Nixon and Jaworski appealed directly to the
Supreme Court which heard arguments five weeks later, on July 8. Nixon's attorney argued
the matter should not be subject to "judicial resolution" since the
matter was a dispute within the executive branch and the branch should
resolve the dispute itself. Also, he claimed Special Prosecutor Jaworski
had not proven the requested materials were absolutely necessary for
the trial of the seven men. Besides, he claimed Nixon had an absolute executive privilege
to protect communications between "high Government officials and those
who advise and assist them in carrying out their duties."

Less than three weeks later the Court issued its decision. After ruling that the Court had the authority to resolve the matter and that Jaworski had proven a
"sufficient likelihood that each of the tapes contains conversations
relevant to the offenses charged in the indictment," the Court went to
the main issue of executive privilege. The Court rejected Nixon's claim
to an "absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from
judicial process under all circumstances."

Elizabeth Warren shows why she's either a moron or incompetent

Remember last year’s government shutdown that nearly tanked our economy? That fight started with a GOP effort
to hold the whole operation of the federal government hostage in order
to try to force Democrats and the president to let employers deny
workers access to birth control.

One small problem: The brief government "shutdown" had nothing to do with birth control, in any way, shape or form. Even if Warren didn't know this, you'd hope that at least one of her staffers would know, and would have spotted this outrageous lie in her text before she gave it on the senate floor.

As an aside: "Progressives" are pushing Warren to run for president. Others want Obama to nominate her to fill the next Supreme Court vacancy.

WH: "we've doubled the number of BP agents nationwide." Truth: Up 20% since Bush left office.

It would seem that every single member of the Obama administration lies constantly and effortlessly. Latest example is White House deputy press secretary Shawn Turner, who talked to the Washington Examiner about border security. Said Turner,

But the truth is that while the number of Border Patrol agents is indeed up sharply over the past ten years, the person responsible for the majority of that increase is President George W. Bush.

In 2008, the last year of Bush's presidency, there were 17,499 Border Patrol agents. Today there are 20,979 Border Patrol agents—an increase of about 20 percent. That's a far cry from the "95 percent increase" claimed by Obama's press secretary. Moreover, not all Border Patrol agents are deployed to the southern border, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.

Wait a second...how can it be considered "secure" if a thousand or so foreigners are pouring across illegally every week? Well, see, it's because they're being apprehended. And then quickly released, and Team Obama flies them to a distant northern city and releases 'em into the general population.

So the term "secure" has this special meaning to Democrats like Reid. If you think "secure" has some other meaning it's because you're a bitter clinger. And raaaacis'. And a Nativist. You're just unenlightened.

Some truths can't be uttered on television. Or in print.

In New Jersey, TV reporter Sean Bergin was wrapping up a report on the ambush shooting of a rookie police officer by a black male, and commented on the prevalence of violence in the inner city. He concluded,

The underlying cause for all of this, of course, young black men
growing up without fathers. Unfortunately, no one in the news media has
the courage to touch that subject.

And the station promptly demonstrated why no one in the media touches that subject, by suspending him.

The number one job of the Lying Media is to protect Democrats and the Left, their goals and priorities. The Left has decided that children can be raised perfectly well without fathers, because all needs can be met by government--as long as it's run by Democrats.

This is a longstanding belief of the Left, and they will attack anyone who claims otherwise.

Another bombshell from the IRS re Lerner

New information about the use of the IRS by Democrats to gain political advantage keeps coming out.

Last week the IRS casually revealed that in addition to emails, IRS employees also had a separate "chat" system.

On April 9, 2013, just days after seeing the draft Treasury
Inspector General Report that revealed the IRS’s massive Tea Party
targeting scheme, Lois Lerner, then director of exempt organizations at
the IRS, sent an email to an IRS IT official asking whether the IRS’s internal chat system could be electronically searched.

Here's Lerner's question in context:

I had a question today about OCS [Microsoft Office Communications
Server]. I was cautioning folks about email and how we have several
occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an
electronic search for responsive emails – so we need to be cautious
about what we say in emails. Someone asked if OCS conversations were
also searchable – I don’t know, but told them I would get back to them.
Do you know?

I-T specialist Maria Hooke replied,

No, the IRS does not routinely save chat communications – unless
employees intentionally take steps to preserve their conversation. These
chat communications are not saved – and this is critical – despite the
fact that “the functionality exists within the software.”

To which Lerner replied, "Perfect."
The timing of this email is not coincidental. As mentioned, it came just
days after Lerner reviewed a draft investigative report from the
inspector general. It would appear as though she was trying to see how much evidence remained to convict her after she reported her hard drive had crashed.

Tuesday, July 15

In which Karma bites our Special Snowflake illegal

Jose Antonio Vargas is a "journalist," and an "immigration activist." Worked for the Washington Post.

He's also in the U.S. illegally. Which means he's automatically revered by everyone on the Left, and Democrats, and "progressives."

Not wanting to draw attention to himself and risk deportation, Vargas only revealed his "undocumented status" to close friends.

Oh, and to anyone who could read the New York Times.

Yes, in a move cleverly designed to draw the greatest possible attention to himself, the guy wrote a piece for the Times boasting about his illegal status and that he wasn't leaving.

Then two years ago, concerned that he hadn't poked his thumb hard enough in the eye of the American people, Vargas wrote a second article--this one for Time, called "Not legal, not leaving." And BTW, kiss my ass.

As you might guess, those two articles elevated the guy to what would be the equivalent of sainthood among the Left.

Having twisted Uncle Sam's beard into a knot, this charming attention-whore wasn't about to stop, but instead repeatedly taunted ICE and Border Patrol in tweets like this one:

As you can see from the guy's tweet, he's a really provocative dude. As he wrote in the Time article, "It's my country too."

Wow, nice! You waltz in and bingo! it's "your country too." Hard to find more brazen behavior.

Well Karma finally caught up with our special snowflake yesterday: Guy had been down at the border checking out how the other illegal aliens were faring, went to board a commercial flight back to the northeast and...ICE cuffed him and took him to a detention center.

Damned inconvenience. But GREAT material for his next article: "I was beaten, starved, mistreated, tortured and hassled by ICE and/or Border Patrol!"

I can see that on Time's next cover now!

But don't worry, Snowflake: The Emperor will order that you be released.

You can fucking count on it.

UPDATE: The guy was released just a couple of hours after I posted this. And I suspect the Border Patrol will ensure he isn't arrested detained in the future. Can't go detaining the Left's golden boys, eh?

Chicago pilot program for Obamacare *unexpectedly* costing millions more than forecast

Cook County, which encompasses Chicago and its surrounding suburbs,
made a deal with the Obama administration to get an early start on the
health care law’s Medicaid expansion in 2012.

The program, called CountyCare, was touted as likely to actually make money for the city. Yes, they thought it would make money: In 2013, state
officials projected it would bring in at least $28
million by November, Crain’s reported

The cost of caring for patients has skyrocketed far above projections, partially because the newly insured are seeking more costly
medical care than officials expected.

Good heavens! The $28 million profit "officials" predicted has unexpectedly turned into a $63.5 million loss! You gotta wonder if these "officials" graduated from the same school as the buffoons in the Commerce Department whose forecast 0.1% growth in the first quarter turned out to be a 3% loss. Lord, are these people all terminally stupid, terminally incompetent or merely corrupt?

But don't worry, citizen: They missed their projections because it was a small-scale program. They'll surely hit their projections when the program covers every American! See, it's called "economy of scale." Unfortunately it can only be understood by people who have a degree from an ivy-league university.

The killer allegedly told a by-stander,
“Watch the TV news later, I’m going to be famous.”

The killer was later killed in a shootout with police.

So far a pretty normal story for New Jersey, Chicago or any of a dozen other crappy, Democrat-run, Democrat-infested cities. But here's the twist: The wife of the shooter was angry that people were offering sympathy to the family of the slain officer, but not to her.

“Sorry for the officer’s family. That’s, you know, whatever,” she told a TV reporter. “But at the end of the day, [the killer] got a
family too. [But] all they care about is the officer.”

Amazing.

Welcome to the world of permanent perceived victimhood. 'I can't believe no one is sympathizing with me, aftermy husband done shot that cop.'

You may have heard that the IRS employee at the center of the ring that delayed tax-exempt applications by conservative groups claims her hard drive crashed. And the IRS claims that in violation of federal law, it wasn't preserving emails, so...gee, sorry. Guess you congressmen can't convict us of anything.

Then--by amazing coincidence--the IRS claimed that the hard-drives of SIX OTHER employees closest to Lois Lerner had ALSO crashed. Beyond any possible recovery of data. Oh, and the drives were quickly destroyed excuse me: "recycled." Sounds so much less malevolent than "destroyed," eh?

Monday, July 14

Obama invites illegals to make a dash across the border, now asks congress for $3.7 Billion to deal with 'em.

By now you've all surely heard that Team Obama has asked congress for a special appropriation of $3.7 Billion to handle the "influx" of "children and individuals from Central America crossing the border."

Not gang members. Not foot soldiers for drug cartels. Not terrorists from Yemen or Somalia. Just..."children from Central America."

Oh, and also some "individuals."

How...odd. That term "individuals" is so vague--not to mention redundant--that one almost suspects it was deliberately chosen to add bulk while conveying absolutely no useful information.

So the bottom line is that Obama's unilateral order not to deport illegals triggered a tidal wave of illegals rushing across the border, since they've concluded they'll be allowed to stay here forever. And who can blame 'em? After all, los gringos must not consider their immigration law very important if El Presidente can order that it not be enforced, simply with a letter, eh?

And how...interesting...that Obozo's unilateral, unconstitutional order will now cost taxpayers a cool $3.7 Billion that could have been spent on...well, anything else at all.

But that's okay, citizen. The federal government is actually rolling in bucks. Oh, and "the border is more secure than ever!" And thanks to El Presidente's magnifico diplomatic skills, the Middle East is more peaceful than ever. And Muslims are learning meditation. And unemployment is at a record low. And the economy is booming! The oceans are receding!

In fact, with everything working this faaabulously it's a cryin' shame that stupid, outdated Constitution thingy bars our Emperor from serving a few more terms! I mean, think of the possibilities if he could stay in office for another 8 or 12 years!

And now that we think about it, the Constitution isn't actually binding or anything, right? It seems more like a set of suggestions. I'll bet the Emperor could "amend" it (that is the word for it, isn't it?) just with a stroke of his pen!

About Me

Ex-AF pilot. While airliners are very safe, flying a single-pilot jet can be extremely demanding, especially in bad weather. It's a *huge* tribute to engineers that today's commercial jetliners are so amazingly safe!